25 Other Problems
by Thescarredman
Summary: Jack's wards aren't the only Gens he helped to escape from Darwin. IO is hunting them all. Some it has already caught. Others...


Detroit Michigan

Monday November 20 2006

0710 hours  


" _Foxtrot. They're leaving the apartment, headed to work_."

Sitting at the steering wheel of his black Suburban, Agent Brian Maddox glanced at his partner to make sure he'd gotten the message on his ear bud as well. Then he brought his wrist mike to his face. "Alpha to Foxtrot. ID?"

" _Positive. Ten of Hearts, Six of Spades._ "

 _Rachel Goldman,_ he thought. _Leon Carver._

"Fox, they still in sight?"

" _Affirmative,_ " said one of the rooftop snipers. " _Headed for the bus stop. I can track them all the way there._ " He added, " _Clear shot. Could switch em off like a light anywhere along the way._ "

 _If the bullet doesn't bounce off,_ Maddox thought, _or veer aside, or just disappear._ "Not the mission profile, Fox. Lethal force only in self-defense. Observe and warn us if they head back."

" _Affirm._ " The man's voice and manner were businesslike, but even having made the offer was a breach of procedure. Maddox seemed to recall that Willis, the man who answered to 'Foxtrot' on this hunt, had been seconded to Ferris Mars' team for the Chula Vista mission. Surviving _that_ charlie-fox would make any man prefer to engage Specials from a distance.

But making a quiet pickup while avoiding going toe-to-toe with alert and fired-up Specials was what the present phase of the op was all about. Maddox felt uneasy not detailing someone to follow the kids to work; he couldn't even keep track of them via their cellphones, because they didn't own any. But the surveillance had to be quiet and discreet. The Shop was determined not to risk being made before it was ready to pounce.

They stepped out of the vehicle and walked half a block to the rundown four-story apartment building IO had tracked the Specials to. It was no different from any of the others that lined the street: unimaginative brick-and-block structures with cracked walks, weedy shallow lawns cluttered with cheap and broken toys, and air conditioners haphazardly installed in the dirty windows. Maddox thought he'd seen parking garages he'd rather live in. _Big step down for a little rich bitch from the Hamptons. Must have been Carver's idea._

The front door had a call box with a vertical row of names and intercom buttons. Maddox noted that the one corresponding to the kids' apartment was blank. They hadn't bothered inserting one of their assumed names into the holder. _Guess they don't throw many parties. And they sure don't welcome strangers._

His partner, Hugh Reckner, pulled a card from his wallet that looked like an electronic hotel key and pressed it to the jamb next to the knob. The door clicked and they pushed it open, headed for the stairs and the kids' top-floor apartment.

When IO had tracked the pair to this rundown suburb and determined they were settled in and not likely to move unless spooked, Special Security had decided to stake them out. It had been hoped that these two might be in contact with other runaways. That possibility hadn't panned out, but the surveillance had given the pickup team time to establish the couple's routines (mostly work and inexpensive distractions like running and people-watching in the park), determine the nature and the extent of their security (none), and acquire a key to their door.

What they hadn't learned, and desperately wished to know, was the nature and extent of Goldman and Carver's special talents. The debacles at Eagle Nest and Westminster Mall and Miramar and Chula Vista made clear the odds against even tough, competent, and well-armed men who went up against Specials of unknown potential. Maddox and Reckner were about to reconnoiter the Specials' apartment, looking for clues.

The hallway was hardly less dilapidated than the building's exterior. A quarter of the overhead lights were out. The stained carpet looked original to the thirty-year-old building, as did the paint. The doors they passed were chipped and dented and had sticky patches from pulled-off tape that attracted grime, and many bore the scars of forced entry. They were secured in their abused jambs by a variety of mismatched locks and knobs. The door at the end of the hall, the entrance to their quarry's lair, was no different.

While Maddox scanned the hall, Reckner produced a shiny new key and inserted it into the lock. Before he turned it, he examined the door's perimeter for any telltales the kids might have left, like a hair or needle or sliver of tape. Finding nothing, he turned the key and knob and opened the door, and the agents entered quickly.

A first look from the door showed no surprises, except that the place was much more livable than the exterior had suggested. The walls were clean and painted, no doubt by the occupants with their own money; a couple of good prints hung on two of them. The furniture was sparse and probably second-hand but quality stuff, and the cheap flooring was mostly covered with decent rugs. The whole setup spoke of sophisticated taste and a small budget. Maddox guessed that, while the location might have been Carver's, the décor was Goldman's. In two years of occupancy, the kids had spruced up the shabby apartment and made it a home.

The two men moved through the rooms, not touching anything yet, just looking. Reckner grunted. "Neat." Maddox nodded. The little apartment wasn't anal-retentive clean – there were items deposited on the coffee table and kitchen counters – but it clearly saw regular cleaning and smelled fresh.

The agents got another little surprise in the apartment's only bedroom. The men traded looks as they studied the twin beds separated by a pair of nightstands, and the invisible line dividing the room as defined by the items on floor and bed and walls. One side was clearly Carver's, the other Goldman's. After two years on the run together, sharing a roof, sharing expenses, sharing a bedroom, even, they weren't a couple.

"Well," Maddox mused as he slipped on a pair of latex gloves, "they are a pretty unlikely pair."

"Oh?" Reckner's flat tone pricked up Maddox's ears. But it wasn't often Maddox thought of his partner as a _black_ man, and it took a second to understand what it was about his statement that had pricked him. He recalled the kids as they appeared on their playing cards: Rachel, a tall, busty-but-slender blue-eyed blonde, looking very Scandinavian for a JAP; and Leon, resembling a cross between a Haitian and a jungle predator, with his hulking muscular physique and his wide features and medium-dark complexion contrasting with the mane of dark-blond dreadlocks and leonine gold eyes.

Maddox met his partner's eyes. "He's a Baptist, she's Jewish. He's from some little town in Georgia where the pigs outnumber the people, she's from Long Island. Before Darwin Academy called, he was set to go to Alabama on a football scholarship. She was in her first year at Brandeis, which her dad covered with a check. They were in the same pod at the Academy, but they didn't socialize after school hours. So how did they end up together?"

Reckner put on his gloves. "Guess we'll have to ask them."

The bedroom held no more surprises. The closet was divided unevenly, with Goldman getting three-quarters of the rod. Maddox noted half a dozen empty hangers, and figured washday must be coming up; the dressers on opposite walls were similarly depleted, with the drawers showing the wood of the bottoms in spots. The drawer in Carver's nightstand held a St. James Bible, an unopened bag of Peanut M&Ms, and a couple of football mags. Hers held a stack of fashion magazines and a couple issues of _New Yorker_. Neither of them held sex toys or contraceptives.

" _Oscar to Alpha._ " Another rooftop observer, this one overlooking the mall entrance Goldman used on the way into work. " _Ten of Hearts, headed inside._ "

The bathroom was still damp from recent showering. Nothing of note in the medicine cabinet but shaving cream, a bottle of multivitamins, and some eye makeup. The waste can under the sink held used tissues and a disposable razor.

Reckner examined the shaving cream. "Dollar-store stuff. And most of his clothes look like Goodwill purchases." He picked up the eyebrow pencil. "Top of the line. Her clothes are all expensive, too. Good thing one of them knows how to stretch a buck."

"She clerks in a high-end fashion store," Maddox reminded him. "They expect her to wear what they sell when she's at work. She gets a hefty discount. Carver's a detailer at a car wash. He's gonna wear Armani to work?" But he thought his partner was probably right. Rachel Goldman had never lacked for anything since she was adopted as an infant; Leon Carver had been working and scrambling since grade school. And Maddox would have bet it was Carver who kept the apartment spic and span; the girl had probably never held a dustrag in her life.

" _Mike to Alpha. Six of Spades, right on time._ "

Back in the living room, Maddox turned on the stereo. He took note of the radio presets (hip-hop, jazz, and NPR on FM, sports on AM) and the volume level (quiet enough to talk over – mustn't give the neighbors a reason to call the cops). The CDs were a mix of rap, jazz, and classical.

"No religious items," Reckner noted. "For either of them."

"Except for Carver's Bible." Maddox looked behind the pictures. Behind the one on the outside wall, he discovered a round hole maybe six inches across in the cement blocks. They took the picture down. With an effort, Maddox got an arm in the hole and explored the wall cavity, but it was empty. Reckner shrugged. "Maybe one of them has a temper."

"Wha'd they use, a hammer?" They replaced the picture. "Hey," Maddox said. "No TV."

"Yeah, not even a thirteen-incher. Well, we already knew they don't spend their evenings in front of the boob tube."

IO had been watching the pair since Tuesday before last. Carver had spent his weekends playing basketball. He'd hit outdoor courts all over town, never visiting the same one twice – hustling, obviously. The kid's speed and agility were amazing, especially for a guy with his massive build. But his record showed he hadn't played in school; Maddox figured the talent had come with whatever freaky ability had been bestowed on him by Gen-factor.

Goldman spent time in the library and running errands. Observers had noted that most of her library time was in the periodicals section and on the library computers. She also met a guy three times, twice during their first week under surveillance and once last Saturday, always at a pizza joint in Greektown. Discreet interviews of the restaurant staff revealed that the two met there once a month or so, but only talked and never left together.

The man's name was Steven Green, a young financial planner from West Bloomfield with an above-average track record; his clients swore by him. But neither Goldman nor Carver had any money invested with him. He was no relation, and how he and Goldman had met was a mystery. Maddox was betting it had been at the mall where Goldman worked.

The kitchen was well-stocked. No surprise; Carver looked like a kid with an appetite. A scratched-up one-pound Folger's can on the counter caught Reckner's attention. He lifted it and shook it, then pulled off the plastic top. "Empty." He sniffed. "Clean. Hasn't had coffee in it for a while." He noted the faint ring of white powder on the counter underneath, and rubbed a pinch of it between his gloved fingers. "Gritty. Not flour or heroin. Almost like a mix of sand and chalk. But there's not a trace of it inside the can."

Maddox was examining the contents of the fridge, also well-stocked. It was a little hard to see inside, though, because the light was out. But the inside was plenty cold. He closed the door and blinked. "Hugh. Look at this."

"This" was a deep set of knuckle prints in the door of the fridge. Reckner made a fist and pressed it into the dent: the hand that had done it was considerably smaller. "Goldman. Guess we know who's got the temper now. Damn. That musta hurt like hell."

"Or maybe it didn't hurt at all."

The cabinet under the sink held the usual assortment of cleaning products. Maddox tipped out the little garbage can and glanced inside: various food packaging.

They toured the rest of the apartment without finding any more clues. When their search wound down, the two men exchanged looks. Reckner said, "Your call."

He considered. The kids had fairly regular weekday schedules. When she got home, Goldman would likely throw on some sweats and go for a run in the park. Carver would arrive about an hour later and, presumably, start preparing dinner. "Call the team. We'll set it up here, take them one at a time when they come home, nice and quiet. Then we'll call an ambulance. I bet people get wheeled out of here on stretchers all the time."

"In bags, even," his partner agreed.

A few minutes later, the doorknob turned and a man slipped into the room: Agent Brad Nelson, aka "Charlie" for this op. He was casually dressed and carried a boombox by its handle. He looked over the small room. "Coffee table, I'd say. They won't see it over the back of the couch from the door. Just have to make sure they close the door and step inside before I activate." He set the box down on the table and opened the lid of the battery compartment, which contained only a remote control. The remote had the usual confusing array of buttons, but Maddox knew that only the on-off button did anything.

Nelson stepped into the bedroom and back out again. "We'll do it from here. When we hear 'em come in, I'll hit the remote, then we take 'em while they're falling over themselves." From pants pockets, he produced a pair of restraint collars for their prisoners and cancellation collars for the three of them. Finally, he produced a small cardboard box of the type gift pens come in. "Who gets this?"

Maddox reached for it. "You guys stay behind me when we go in."

"Bet your ass."

They waited. Reckner filed paperwork on his PDA. Maddox went through the latest surveillance reports on his. Nelson looked through the fridge and made a sandwich.

The guy Rachel was seeing in Greektown itched at Maddox. They'd decided not to interview him before the Specials were taken down, in case he had a means of warning them. But the team had run down everyone on the wait staff who'd ever served them, hoping to learn what they'd talked about. But the couple, if couple they were, always clammed up while service was present. The team had just begun interviewing former employees who might have served them.

There was one more thing about Goldman's meetings with Green. They usually met no more often than once every four or five weeks. Why three times in two weeks? It was a little thing, but Maddox didn't like changes in a subject's habits while he was watching.

"Hey." Nelson was giving them a strange look from the kitchen. "Check this out." He was holding a box containing packets of microwave popcorn. "The cupboard's full of these things."

"Yeah, so they like microwave popcorn." Maddox returned his attention to his display.

"So, how do they cook it without a microwave?"

Maddox's eyes snapped up to the counter. For kids Carver's and Goldman's age, a mike was an indispensable appliance. But there was none in the little kitchen, and no place for one in its arrangement. Reckner's eyes met his as he pocketed his PDA to have another look.

While Maddox was searching through the cupboards, Reckner stretched to look behind the refrigerator. "Son of a bitch."

Maddox looked next. The duplex outlet behind the fridge, an old two-prong type, was vacant. The big appliance's cord, a three-pronger with no adapter, lay on the floor behind.

He touched his mike. "All units, be advised. Six of Spades is a probable thermal." When Reckner touched a finger to the dent in the fridge, he added, "And Ten of Hearts is a probable FDM. Level unknown."

"This change anything?" Reckner eyed the little box holding the Lethe dispenser.

"No. Stick with the plan." Maddox returned to his PDA and the surveillance reports.

Time passed. The agents stayed low, sometimes getting up to move quietly about the apartment, but staying away from the single window. They made food, read from their PDAs, and watched the clock.

Another little oddity surfaced in Maddox's mind. The kids' jobs didn't pay much, at least not per-hour. But they both worked hard, and the observers were sure Carver was pulling some good tip money. His basketball-hustling weekends might have put a grand into his hand each month, besides. And Goldman's sales commission was at least doubling her weekly take-home. They had plenty of income, and not much by way of living expenses. What were they doing with the money?

"Hey," Reckner said. "Shouldn't she be on her way home by now?"

Maddox checked his watch: Three PM, Goldman's usual shift change. "Maybe." He keyed his mike. "Oscar, report."

" _No sign. Send somebody in to look?_ "

As if there was anybody on the team who could enter a fashion store for 'tweens and not stick out instantly. "Negative. Hold position." To Reckner he said, "Once a month, she works a couple hours over doing inventory. Just our luck it'd be tonight."

"Change of plan?"

"We just bag Carver first, that's all." Keyed his mike again. "Mike. Any sign of the Six of Spades?"

" _Negative. Not since he went inside._ "

He thought about sending someone into the detail shop to check on Carver. But the kid worked inside at the back of the shop, and only came out to present the finished car to the customer and collect his tip. "Roger. Hold position." He switched frequencies. "Sierra. Send somebody into the detail shop with a car that doesn't scream 'rental', see if they can spot the boy."

His PDA chirped. It turned out to be an incoming report from one of the field investigators detailed with tracking down former wait staff from the pizza joint. The agent had found a waitress who had served Goldman and Green in early March of oh-four, just a month after the fugitives' escape. The waitress was sure it had been the first time the two had met at the restaurant. Each time she'd approached the table, it had been spread with paperwork, reports of some kind with lists of numbers, and the talk had all been about buy orders and margins and Morningstar ratings. But the tall blonde had been doing all the talking, and the guy all the listening.

"Son of a bitch," he said. He called up Goldman's school record at Brandeis, and mentally kicked himself. The girl had been enrolled, not at the College of Arts and Sciences, but at the International Business School, with a double major in Business Administration and International Finance. It looked like the Jewish princess might know how to handle a buck after all.

Reckner was watching him. "Something?"

"Maybe." Next, he called up a financial workup on Green. The guy hadn't done anything suspicious with his money in the past three years, except that he'd invested a big chunk of his income in the market and done very well. But, in March of oh-four, his widowed mother had opened a brokerage account as well, and her contributions were way out of line for a fifty-year-old woman on a fixed income. She'd invested in the same issues as her son, and accumulated eighty thousand dollars in two and a half years. She'd moved most of it into liquid assets last week and cashed that portion out Friday afternoon. "I don't fucking believe this."

He stood and moved to the picture on the outside wall again. "Hugh. Help me with this." Together, they removed the picture, exposing the hole behind it. While his partner and Nelson watched, Maddox went to the kitchen and returned with the coffee can.

Reckner eyed the can and the hole. "Fuck."

The coffee can fit neatly into the hole, a simple wall safe.

Reckner said, "We're missing something else. Why did they go to the trouble of taking the can out of the wall?"

Maddox removed the can with a slight effort and felt around inside the cavity again, which now seemed suspiciously large. He was more thorough this time, twisting around awkwardly to reach all six walls. Somehow, they'd hollowed out the blocks behind to make a pocket two feet square and six inches deep. "Because their real stash was behind the can instead of inside. A double hide." His fingers touched something in the far corner, a piece of paper. He teased it toward him with his fingertips until he could grasp it. He drew it out, and he and Reckner stared at the dusty hundred-dollar bill in his fingers.

Feeling the walls sort of shift around him, Maddox revisited the laundry room. The appliances and hamper were empty; the clothes missing from the closet and dressers weren't in the apartment. He brought his mike to his lips. "Foxtrot. What were they wearing when they left?"

" _Just street clothes, nothing special. And backpacks, but they've been doing that all week._ "

Reckner said, "Bet they were fuller than usual this morning. Son of a bitch. How did they make us?"

"Hell, I don't know. Maybe they spotted our freaking auras."

-0-

"Fleeing over the rooftops, like B-movie fugitives." Rachel Goldman dropped to hands and knees behind the four-foot-high enclosure around the central air conditioner. A lock of blonde hair, freed from its bun, fell loose over her cheek, its tip brushing the tarred surface of the roof. "These slacks are ruined. You sure know how to show a date a good time, Leon."

"I don't date white chicks. Specially not Jewish ones. My Mama told me Jews killed Jesus."

Her teeth flashed in a brief smile at his teasing. Religion had been a cautious subject early in their relationship, but they were comfortable with it now, sometimes smiling over the assumptions they'd each started with. "Like he didn't have it coming, the goniff, preaching without a license. Are we going to spend our lives up here, or what?"

"Just checking before we move. Keep low." He adjusted the straps on his pack and moved in a crouch towards the side of the building, keeping to cover.

"You know, Leon, if the bad guys are watching the bus terminal, they've probably got people on rooftops."

"Which is why we're avoiding skylining ourselves by not using the tallest buildings, and keeping to rooftops with a lot of clutter. Maybe I'm being stupid, but I just don't want to risk the front entrance."

The side of the roof ended in a wall, blank brick except for an attached iron ladder. The buildings on this block were so close their walls touched, and the adjacent one was a story higher. He gestured his companion up the ladder and followed close behind. Near the top, he almost ran his face into her rear end when she stopped short. "What are you doing up there?"

"Taking a look before I show more than my head. You staring at my ass again, Carver?"

"It's all I can see, Wide Load." Actually, he thought, Rachel had a decent trunk for a white girl – meaning, she had the kind of booty white guys drooled over: tight and rounded, each bun small enough to cup in one hand. Slender hips, womanly but carrying nothing extra. When she was in tight shorts and standing with her feet together, Leon was sure he could have put one hand between her upper thighs without touching them – a condition she called her 'thigh gap' and he called 'bowlegged.' Not that he'd ever touched her above the knee, or ever would. "You done sightseeing?"

"Are you? Just waiting for you to get your breath back." She stepped up. "Thought you were in better shape. You sound like you just sprinted sixty yards."

They clambered to the roof and moved to the back of the building. "Okay," he said, "now the hard part."

The next building, the terminal, was a story shorter and lay across a narrow alley maybe eight or ten feet wide. He looked out over the gap at the flat black expanse. "Get a good running start and push off as hard as you can. Land with your knees a little bent and roll. If you don't think you can do this, we'll-"

She blew by him, floated over the gap, and landed on her feet. Her pack had been in her hand, and she let it go as she went down, rolled once, and sprang to her feet again, bouncing forward another step or two. She picked the pack up and shouldered it, grinning up at him. "Well? Gonna jump or just talk about it all day?"

Leon backed away from the lip as far as he could, then sprinted to the edge, planting a foot on the coaming and pushing off with everything he had. The black roof rushed up at him, and he barely had time to put his feet together and let go of his pack. He landed heavily with a grunt and tumbled. He rested a moment, breathing heavily.

Her hand was in his face, offering help up. " _Oy vey_ ," she said in a nasal Mama Yid voice. "You almost went through, you big gorilla. Maybe you should cut back on the pork rinds."

"Guess all that martial-arts crap taught you to take a fall, anyway." He accepted her hand and let her pull him to his feet. Rachel was damn strong for a girl, and not just from her power. It was a treat to sit on the living room couch and watch her practicing with her chucks and three-section staff. She was way better at it than any of the poseurs he knew; she made it look like a dance, and the tethered clubs moved faster than the eye could follow. He was sure she could walk into a cracker bar and clean it out if she had a mind to. It seemed a weird hobby for a chick from Brandeis.

"Always the smart lip. No appreciation, no respect. Maybe when I'm dead, you'll show up for the funeral in decent clothes, at least." She brushed off his jacket. Face-to-face and her in sensible shoes, they stood eye-to-eye, both of them six feet tall. "How you gonna get a decent job, find a nice girl, you dress like a bum all the time? You can't wash cars and hustle on street corners all your life."

He smiled despite himself. He doubted Rachel knew anybody who spoke like this. Her adoptive family, Jewish though they were, was Long Island gentry for three generations, and her normal speaking voice sounded British to his ear. But ever since he'd teased that she 'didn't look Jewish', she'd trotted out her fake accent whenever she felt in a joking mood or wanted to lift his spirits. He said, "My luck, I ever look halfway prosperous, some little blonde golddigger will latch onto me. Okay, Mrs. Abramowitz. Let's find a way down."

Once inside the terminal, they headed for the restrooms. Leon locked himself in the crip stall, opened his pack, and changed jackets. He stuffed his dreds under a ball cap with the brim turned around and perched a pair of shades on his nose. Then he went to the sink and examined his image in the crusty mirror. Not good enough, he decided. He dug back into the pack and came up with a little eyecare kit, and replaced the brown contacts he wore every day to hide his gold-colored irises with hazel ones. He looked at his image again. It wouldn't fool a pro for a second, he decided, but it should be enough to keep a casual witness from looking at a picture of him from Darwin later and making a connection. He could only hope they were that far ahead of the hunters, at least.

He found a seat facing the ladies' and sat down to wait for Rachel. He glanced up at the big wall clock: 8:05. By eight-fifteen, she still hadn't shown. He shifted in his seat and pushed down his unease. Girls always took longer in the bathroom, and she was probably messing with her makeup besides. There was no reason to think she was in trouble. None at all.

A street hag stepped in front of him, blocking his view. "How do I look?"

He did a double take. She'd darkened her light blonde hair to a dishwater hue somehow, and teased it into a bird's nest. Her fashion-store makeup was gone, and in its place was a cosmetic face that looked overdone and a little sickly. She'd traded in her slacks for a pair of torn jeans and a threadbare Army surplus jacket. "Like you should be pushing a shopping cart full of blankets down the street. I'm almost embarrassed to be seen with you. Time to buy tickets?"

"Time to get on the bus. It's about to pull out."

They hadn't discussed a destination. "Where?"

"Salt Lake City. Just the first ride out of here. It'll stop in Chicago in seven hours. We can get a bus to anywhere from there."

He was about to make a comment about the wasted money, but stopped and thought it over. It was a cheap way to throw a false trail, he decided. She was right. Rachel was always right about money.

And it wasn't like they were going to run short of cash anytime soon, thanks to her. She'd taken the remainder of their runaway money and invested it through some broker in West Bloomfield, adding to it with the cash from their jobs and his winnings and the extra she wrung out of their tiny household budget. After she'd closed the account Friday and brought the cash home, they'd had sixty-two thousand dollars in the space under the coffee can behind Van Gogh's 'Poplar Trees.'

They talked it out as the bus lumbered westward down I-96. "The Carolinas, maybe," he suggested. "South, but not too far south. Someplace where a mixed couple won't draw attention."

She shook her head slightly, smiling. "Leon, greet the twenty-first century, will you? 'Mixed couple'."

"Rache, get your head out of the clouds. Maybe it's no big deal back where you call home, but there are plenty places we'd draw stares and start talk." Including their old neighborhood in Detroit. He'd had to deal with a few uncomfortable questions from acquaintances who'd seen Rachel, and put down a few jackasses who'd made knowing comments about his 'fancy whitebread bitch'. Put them down pretty hard, in fact.

Her lips pursed. A stranger would think she was pouting, but Leon knew she was just thinking. "California, then. Anything goes there, I hear, and it's as far from home as we can get. Without a boat or plane, anyway. Or crossing a border."

He couldn't think of a better destination. "Okay. But I think we should still change buses."

"And pick an indirect route," she agreed. "Texas or Oklahoma first, maybe."

"You ready for two solid weeks on a bus?"

"Maybe we should lay over for a few days between legs. Who knows, we might come up with a better plan." She settled against the window and closed her eyes.

Neither of them suggested splitting up. The idea occurred to him, but he shrugged it off without much thought. He knew it would sound crazy if he said it aloud, but he was sure they were meant to be together.

 _It even sounds crazy when I say it in my head_ , he thought with a smile as he watched her features settle and heard her breathing deepen. Rachel had been in his pod at Darwin, and they'd gotten along okay, but they hadn't shared any time outside of school hours. She wasn't overtly snobby, but she talked with other rich kids about art and music and politics, highbrow stuff that bored and frustrated him. And football talk made her eyes glaze over. Even if she hadn't been white, he was sure a date with her would have been a disaster. She plain wasn't his type, nor he hers.

Which made their partnering up for the escape a mystery of religious proportions. He'd been standing in the frigid lot, listening to car doors slam and engines flutter to life, looking for someone to share the road with. His first thought had been of the Schaffer twins – what guy's wouldn't? – but he'd seen them leaving with Gossip Girl Julie, and doubted his welcome. He'd wandered among the idling vehicles, sort of looking for Sharita Johnson, a girl from Pod Six he was friendly with. He'd come up alongside a car as its engine whirred to life, and, without conscious thought, he'd reached for the passenger handle. The lock had popped as he'd touched it, and he'd dropped into the seat and shut the door before he'd even looked at the driver.

Rachel Goldman had looked as startled as he'd felt. But she'd only said, "Looking for a ride?"

He'd nodded. "Were you expecting somebody?"

She'd stared into his eyes like she was trying to read his mind or something. "No." She'd put the car in gear and headed for the gate. No questions, no discussion.

When the scarred man who'd broken them out had asked for a destination, she'd looked at Leon, and he'd said, "Detroit," which was kind of weird, since he'd never been there.

He'd thought a spoiled rich girl like her would be dead weight. He was dead wrong. She'd pulled her own and then some. When their contact in Detroit had presented her with a minimum-wage-plus-commission job in a clothing store at a mall, she'd accepted without a word, dug in, and had made a small fortune from regulars who'd come to rely on her fashion sense. She hadn't so much as wrinkled her nose at the shabby apartment he'd found, just gone to work on it. She was obviously a stranger to housework, but she'd tried hard and taken instruction well, and was fussier about keeping things neat than he was, sort of making him raise his standards for their shared duties. She'd furnished the place from secondhand shops and auctions and garage sales, insisting they do without if they couldn't find quality. He'd sniffed at that at first, but as the apartment took shape, he was amazed at what she'd fashioned for scarcely more than the cost of a roomful of pressboard junk from Walmart. He'd learned to appreciate fine things by seeing the difference between the good stuff and the cheap stuff, and the difference between taste and fashion. That little apartment was the best place he'd ever lived in. Because of her.

"What?" She said, eyes slitting open. He suddenly realized he'd been staring at her for maybe ten miles.

"Just thinking how lucky I am to have you." He felt his ears warm. "You know. To be on the run with. We make a good team."

"Mm." Her eyes closed. "Leon?"

"Yeah?"

"How come you never hit on me?"

"Not my type."

"White girls, right." The corners of her mouth turned up. "But you haven't been on a single date since Darwin. I'm sure you've had chances."

"Couldn't exactly bring em home." That had been an iron rule: no one else invited to their apartment. He couldn't remember whose idea it had been.

"Mere detail. Somebody would think you're being faithful."

"We're a couple, remember? That's our cover." _You didn't date anybody either, though I bet Stevie boy would have liked to take things past money talk and pizza._

"Mm. Right." She slumped back into her coat.

He forced a full breath into his lungs. "What if I had?"

"I'd have slapped you down. But it's a real ego-buster that you never tried."

"Good thing I didn't, then. I wouldn't want to end up like the fridge."

She huffed. "Can't imagine hitting you. Just a flash of temper, Leon. Mom always said I should have been a redhead. It was just finding out they'd found us, is all."

"Bet you're glad now I wasted a dollar a day on Paulie." Paulie was one of the homeless wretches who haunted the dumpsters and doorways of the housing project. It was Paulie who'd tipped Leon that strangers were in the neighborhood watching their place.

"I never thought of it as a waste. Just because I counted every dime didn't mean I grudged it. And I know you weren't fooling yourself about what he spent it on. If you needed to drop a buck into some wino's hand every day to stay connected to the human race, it was a bargain. Neither of us knew you were adopting a watchdog with that money." She settled in and closed her eyes.

He watched her fall asleep, silent. _If it wasn't for Darwin, we'd have never met. That car wash job was the best I ever had, and my day's pay there probably wouldn't have bought lunch at your favorite restaurant. If you'd seen me on a street corner, you'd have looked away to avoid eye contact. We're just strangers with nothing in common but a shared disaster. Survivors of a plane crash, one from first class, one from coach. When rescue comes, we'll have nothing left to keep us together._

"Leon?"

He started; he'd been sure she was asleep. "Yeah?"

"You remember Rudy Ferrington?"

He remembered Rudyard Ferrington: an upper-crust sort from Boston, just Rache's type, whose intentions toward her had been obvious. He hadn't exactly looked down on Leon and those like him at Darwin; more like he had looked at them from an uncrossable gap, as if Leon was an intelligent alien, strange and unfathomable. Leon felt Rudy was a guy he couldn't even discuss the weather with. "What about him?" But somehow he already knew.

"He said he was going to get a coat, and he'd be right back. But he was gone forever. Then, you got in, and I knew somehow I'd really been waiting for you. I hope he found someone."

25


End file.
